My youngest will be three on the 13th of December. For my family, the threes were always worse than the twos. Something like, terrible twos, torturous threes.

With the shining example set by her older siblings, my little monkey is already a prodigy: she can shatter bulletproof glass with her voice, and shake the house off its very foundation with the force of her will. She's also mastered the art of opening the fridge. That actually happened just this evening, as the hubs and I wrestled the trees into their stands in the front yard.

See, we bought the trees last weekend, and then I had my frenzy, and it rained like crazy, and with the sunny weather today, I decided it was trees-into-the-house time. We had to trim the bottoms of the trunks, and lo there were spastic attempts, and near artery misses with the dull saw and pathetic spraying of aerosol olive oil on said dull saw and then it dawned on us that ha ha! we own a powered saw!

I sent the husband into the garage to get the circular saw, and he returned with the skill saw (or was it the jigsaw... whatever the little narrow bladed one is.) We took up our positions: his at the base of the tree, one shoe on the trunk, saw at the ready. I straddled the body of the tree and figured that was about as much work as I was willing to do. The saw made quick work of the first inch into the trunk, and then the battery died.

While the hubster searched the garage for another charged battery, I sprayed a little olive oil into the cut. I'm so helpful like that. I was all *psssst pssssst* and so proud of my efforts. The new battery was much better than the old one, and we made some crude jokes about the vibrating and the straddling and the lubricating and of course, the wood...

While we were snickering behind our sap covered hands like the dorks that we are, it dawned on me that the house was awfully quiet. I decided to check in and see what was being destroyed.

Behold, my youngest darling child managed to get the fridge open, and in an advanced maneuver, she cracked a dozen eggs onto the floor. Not just in one spot. No! She carried them about the house, cracking and leaving little pools of egg in surprising locations. Then she threw all the shells in the toilet. In hindsight, there are worse things that could have happened with the shells.

When we caught her red-handed with the last of the eggs, she threw herself to the floor, wailing and tearing at her hair (with her egg-coated hands! Yum!) She was upset that we didn't share her vision. This plan, this egg event - we squashed it and it was the end of the world. The End.

So we threw the raging monkey into the shower, and began to hunt for puddles of egg. I hope we found them all. She screamed for the entire shower, enjoying the echo, I assume.

Back outside the shower, dressed in warm pajamas, she started up with the "I hold you!" routine. I held her until I was needed for the final assult on the Christmas trees on our front walk. Then I joined the kids for a viewing of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

In whatever brain development stage my almost-three-year-old daughter is in, learning seems to need repetition. She says something, a little tenative the first time, and then immediately repeats it two or three or five hundred times, in case you didn't get it, or wanted to hear it again.

"Mama! Where's the Bumble?" She's seen this before, but not for a year. I was a little surprised that she remembered. "The Bumble, Mama. Where is the Bumble? Hey! Where's that silly Bumble? Silly Bumble. Ha! Ha ha! Mama! The Bumble is so silly. Where is that Bumble, Mama?"

I was tempted to run into the bathroom for my bumble & bumble shampoo just to say "Here! Voila! THE BUMBLE!" But that would have resulted in "Silly, Mama! You're a silly mama! Where's the silly Bumble, silly Mama?"

All through the show she obsessed. "Why is the Bumble screaming, Mama? I think he's hungry. He needs some olives. Yes, the Bumble is hungry for olives. Mama, do you think the Bumble is hungry? I think Bumbles like olives."

I let the sound wash over me and just enjoyed smelling her freshly shampooed hair. Like my son, she doesn't really seem to need a response. It's more like her brain needs her to verbalize and reinforce these thoughts.

After the movie ended, I called bedtime, and shuffled the kids down the hall. I got my oldest settled in her room, and by the time I got into the room shared by my little ones, my compulsive repeater was sound asleep, sucking on her thumbs with a slight smile. She must have worn herself out with all the thinking and talking and talking and thinking.

I do that too. In fact, I think I just did.